


Simple

by twosidedcoin



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 10:19:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15794514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twosidedcoin/pseuds/twosidedcoin
Summary: Sometimes its the mind that breaks before anything else.(or, this is a poor excuse to hurt Dewey and, really, is anybody surprised at this point?)





	Simple

One moment he was walking, and he was fine. The next he wasn’t.

And it really didn’t get any simpler than that.

* * *

 

The voice was whispering in his ear- cold and callous and demanding attention. He wished it wouldn’t. He wished it would go away, but it stayed. Close enough to be mocking but just out of reach so he couldn’t do anything about it.

Dewey grunted, trying to move but found he couldn’t. He was on his stomach surrounded by darkness and cold and there was a pain at the base of his spine that flared every time he so much as shifted. So he didn’t. He laid there and focused on his breathing.

In and out. Slow and steady. Try and drown out the whispers tickling the corners of his brain.

_You’re alone here Deuteronomy. No one cares about you. They don’t even know you’re gone- they don’t notice these things._

Dewey growled softly in the base of his throat, blinking past the tears that were welling in the corners of his eyes. He didn’t bother wiping them away. Wasn’t even sure if they were because of the pain or the words.

_You could disappear forever and they’d never notice. You’ll just remain forgotten down here. Forever._

Dewey groaned, shifted his arms. The pain spiked and he had to stop with a soft cry- falling limp and useless.

_And, you know, they really do deserve better than you. All you do is keep secrets from them and put their safety at risk for your own selfish desires. Face it. All you’ll ever be is the third forgettable triplet._

“No!” Dewey yelled.

The voice chuckled lowly.

_You’ll never be special. You’ll never be important. You’ll never be noticed. You’ll always be lost in the shuffle._

Dewey groaned, reaching out with his arms. He needed to move. He needed to figure out where he was, and he needed to find a way to escape. His back cried at him to stop, but he didn’t. He just placed one arm in front of the other as he crept along at the slowest most agonizing pace he’s ever endured.

_You should stop, you know. You’ll only further hurt yourself._

Dewey didn’t care. His mind had fuzzed out, and he didn’t entirely feel there. All he could focus on was moving. One arm in front of the other. The slow agonizing crawl, tears staining his face and the voice whispering in his ear. It was too much.

He stopped, succumbing to the darkness and repeated brokenly, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. _I’m sorry._ ”

* * *

 

There was almost something poetic about the cold and darkness. They paired so well together- impossible to have one without the other- and it was almost ironic when he considered how, even alone, they had each other.

And Dewey hadn’t wanted to die like this- alone and in pain, with tears wetting his face. He’d always thought he’d get a more heroic end, or at the very least one surrounded by the people he loved. His uncles and brothers and Webby, but he was alone with nothing but the cold and the dark and his thoughts.

_Just let go. It’s for the best._

Dewey didn’t. He wasn’t quite sure why or what he was waiting for. He wanted to stop hurting, and he wanted for that voice to be quiet and it would have been so easy. To just close his eyes and let himself spiral into the warm comfort of oblivion.

Yet he didn’t. He laid there, paralyzed, and continued to breath. In and out. Slow and steady.

* * *

 

If Dewey was honest, which he’s starting to think he rarely was, he’d never really thought about dying before. Not on Mount Neverrest. Not when Launchpad challenged a psychotic robot to a race. Not even when they were literally golfing for their lives.

It wasn’t so much that it never crossed his mind- because it did- but more that he hadn’t been alone and in that line of thinking he’d been so sure they would come out with their lives. So, no, he never really thought about dying or the legacy he was going to leave behind.

He just focused on the next thing. The next part of a puzzle he had hoped was nowhere near completion. Now it looked like the puzzle was over, and he wasn’t sure he liked the picture.

His brothers hated him for keeping secrets about their mom. Uncle Scrooge hated him for blaming him about their mother. He was a hazard to society and always seeking attention. He was nothing.

That made this death oddly fitting in its own morbid way.

* * *

 

He’d been wearing a hat because it had been cold. It was blue and warm and had a giant puffball at the end. Huey had bought it for him for a birthday present. Something about warm head and warm thoughts. Dewey had politely thanked him before setting it aside for some of his other gifts.

He wasn’t wearing the hat now. He missed it.

* * *

 

Even before Dewey had known Scrooge was their uncle he’d always admired him for his adventurous spirt. Huey and Louie liked him for lame or superficial reasons, but Dewey had looked at him and saw everything they couldn’t be because there was no way Uncle Donald would let them go on adventures like that.

Then he found out it was that thirst for adventure- that need to find the next thing, to go to the next beyond- that lost him his mother, and life had a funny way of playing itself out sometimes.

* * *

 

The voice had stopped. Dewey wasn’t sure that was a good sign.

* * *

 

Once when Louie was younger he’d gotten sick. Really sick, like hospital bad. Dewey wasn’t really sure about all the details because Uncle Donald had dropped him and Huey off at Uncle Gladstone’s for a week.

Uncle Gladstone never said anything about death or people going to the hospital and not coming back out. He just looked at them, and Dewey knew. He could see it in his eyes, and Dewey knew Huey had seen it too.

But then Louie came back and everything was fine so really what did adults know?

* * *

 

Dewey woke up and wasn’t cold. Everything was also white, so he figured that it had probably happened while he’d been dozing. Except he couldn’t remember falling asleep. He couldn’t remember much of anything.

But then a figure moved and it wasn’t an angel or demon or whatever greeted you in the afterlife. It was tall and familiar, and Dewey’s heart sank.

“Are you dead too?” he croaked weakly, voice raspy and wrong.

Gyro blinked surprised eyes at him before he replied, “You’re not dead Dewey.”

But Dewey shook his head because he knew. His family hadn’t been coming for him. They would have found him already. Like the voice had said.

“It’s okay,” Dewey reassured his startled expression, “I know. It’s okay.”

“Dewey-” but he never heard what he was going to say because he was already sinking back into the darkness.

* * *

 

Someone was fiddling with his blanket. They kept pulling and yanking, which was really uncool because he was dead. Let him have some peace.

Except when he got his eyes back open it was to Uncle Scrooge antagonizing rather or not the blanket was perfect. And Uncle Scrooge hadn’t died, couldn’t be dead. Dewey knew that. Just like he knew that he had.

“Why didn’t you come for me?” Dewey asked, voice small, “I waited, but you never came.”

Scrooge startled at the sound of his voice, head whipping in its direction. Dewey just stared numbly back. Wanting but knowing he couldn’t. This wasn’t his world anymore. His family had left him, and that thought only filled him with resignation.

Scrooge shook his head fiercely, seeking out Dewey’s hand and clutching it tightly. He was shaking. He couldn’t be Uncle Scrooge. Uncle Scrooge never shook.

“We came for you lad,” not-Scrooge swore, “and you did good. Waiting for us, I mean. We got you out. Don’t you remember?”

Dewey didn’t because it hadn’t happened. He slipped his hand free and rolled his head so his eyes rested on the ceiling.

“Dewey?” not-Scrooge prodded gently, voice quivering.

Dewey didn’t reply. He didn’t have anything left to say.

* * *

 

He had the darkness but not the cold. The white had alluded him as well, changing to soft muted colors that looked as if they belonged in Scrooge’s mansion. Dewey wasn’t sure what games the afterlife was trying to play with him, but he wished for it to stop.

He woke and was alone. Fitting as that had been how he’d died, alone. The thought didn’t make him angry because he knew- the voice _said_ \- he deserved nothing less. He deserved nothing because he was nothing.

Even now, with the illusion of being back in Scrooge’s mansion he was still alone. It was what he deserved. He knew this now.

Still something pressed him, urged him towards the door. So he slipped out of bed silently, not bothering to fix the covers. It wasn’t real. There was no need.

He had to give it to whatever illusion this was. All the details were perfect and as he wondered down the hall he marveled at just how exact the whole thing was. Everything, even his family.

He found them at the end of the hall, huddled together behind a cracked door. Light was spilling out from the crevice, voices soft and muted when Dewey stopped in front of it. And he knew it wasn’t real. He knew it was all just a game, but his heart yearned for them all the same.

Uncle Donald was sitting on a bed, cradling Louie to himself. Huey was sitting next to him, head leaning against their uncle’s shoulder and knees pulled up to his chest, and they looked awful. Louie was probably the worst: eyes red and feathers soaked and body quivering with silent sobs.

Huey didn’t look much better. He was no longer crying, but that could have easily been because he’d run out of tears. He just sat there sniffling, face drawn downwards like he’d lost something important and wasn’t sure he’d ever gain it back.

Then there was Uncle Donald, who could probably pass as fine to any random passerby but Dewey saw and he knew. Uncle Donald was breaking and- worst- he was grieving. Yet he had to hold it all together because Huey and Louie needed him.

Dewey’s eyes flickered around the room in sudden panic. Had he been wrong? Had Scrooge die as well? Had he died trying to save him? Scrooge deserved better than that.

“Dewey?”

Dewey startled, pushing the door open with his elbow and spilling out on the floor. Webby blinked at him: pale and unsure. She was holding a tray of tea, Scrooge’s favorite, and she seemed frozen in place. Like she’d seen a ghost, and when he struck the ground the pain in his spine was triggered.

He grunted, winced and felt himself slip.

Except he wasn’t sure the afterlife was supposed to hurt.

* * *

 

There was something vastly different about living surrounded by people and dying with no one. It put things in perspective, like how he’d been trying his whole life to get away from those people when in the end they had been all he could think about.

And, this time, when he woke up he wasn’t alone.

He was being squished between his two brothers. The bed was big enough to comfortably accommodate all three of them, of course, but for whatever reason Huey and Louie had gotten it in their minds that they had to be touching.

Louie was curled in his side, hands gripping onto his wrist tightly, and he was sleeping. His soft breath blowing against Dewey’s face. Warm and real and very much alive.

Huey was on his other side. He was sitting upright, legs crossed and his dorky guidebook opened in his lap. He seemed to be reading, but when Dewey turned to look at him he gave his hand a firm squeeze.

“Huey?” Dewey asked, confused.

Huey shushed him as Louie snorted, eyes fluttering open. Dewey glanced between the two of them confusedly, feeling like he’d missed something. Then awareness flickered into Louie’s eyes, and he lurched himself at Dewey with a soft cry.

Dewey caught him the best he could, feeling the wetness of his brother’s face soak into his shoulder. He found he didn’t mind. Welcomed it as he sought Huey out with his eyes.

Huey’s eyes were wet, but he was staring at them with a soft expression. He still looked awful. Like it’d been days since he’d last slept or ate, but Huey didn’t make any inclination of noticing. He just shut his book and moved to climb off the bed.

“I should alert the others you’re awake,” he said but Dewey just heard he was leaving him alone again and he _couldn’t_.

Dewey reached out to grab onto the back of his shirt and he heard himself beg, “Don’t go.”

And Huey didn’t. His eyes just grew damp, and it wasn’t much longer before Dewey was holding both his sobbing brothers. They were probably ruining his shirt, but Dewey didn’t care. He’d missed them. He’d missed them so much.

“I’m sorry guys,” he apologized brokenly, “I know you deserve better, and I try but it’s never good enough, and I’m so, so sorry.”

Huey’s arms tightened as Louie’s muffled voice said, “Hey Dewey.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

* * *

 

It came back to him in pieces, over the course of the next month. Mostly in his sleep and he had to take writing his dreams down in hopes of putting it all back together.

He started with what everybody told him. They’d been exploring an ice cavern when there was an earthquake or something. The ice had broken and Dewey had fell, rope tied around his waist snapping and leaving him at the bottom of some ravine.

Then he filled it in with what he knew. It’d been cold, and his back hurt, and he’d waited for his family to rescue him. He didn’t tell them about the voice- kept that to himself- but everything else he shared.

And, finally, his dreams helped piece it all together. He’d been awake when they’d found him, lying several feet from where he’d landed, and his body had been sprawled out in the most uncomfortable position imaginable. He hadn’t felt it then because of the cold, but Scrooge had expressed his concern.

He’d been apologizing when they found him and wouldn’t stop as they lifted him from the ravine or rushed him to Scrooge’s hospital. They’d asked him what he was sorry for, but Dewey wouldn’t stop long enough to give them an answer. He just kept saying it over and over and over again. _I’m sorry._

The hospital staff had to eventually put him under, said he’d been too stubborn and refused to close his eyes on his own. He thinks he might have been afraid of what would happen if he had, a sentiment echoed by his family: If he’d closed his eyes in that ravine he wouldn’t have been opening them ever again.

Then he’d been moved to Gyro’s lab before again to Scrooge’s mansion. He wasn’t allowed any visitors, the adults worried about Dewey’s mental state upsetting the children. Dewey didn’t blame them, though he’s been woken up many nights to Huey or Louie screaming his name. Eventually they decided it best to just all bunk together until the nightmares passed.

Except Dewey wasn’t sure the nightmares would ever stop completely. Some part of him will always remain at the bottom of that ravine, just like some part of his brothers will remain stuck in a world where Dewey hadn’t made it out.

But a month passed and Uncle Donald had found him a wonderful therapist and Dewey started to think he’d been premature in that conclusion. He’d never be able to forget, and the therapist will never be able to magically fix him, but he’ll learn to move on. He’ll learn to leave it behind him, and if he cherished his family or life or adventures a little more than it was only a coincidence.

It really was that simple.


End file.
